


A kite in its sky, a king on his knees

by 62miles



Category: SHINee
Genre: Certain terminology taken from the Joseon Era, Coming of Age, I may or may not have had too much fun naming the palaces and servants, M/M, Many details and indeed all places are fictitious, historical setting, since the ruling family was Yi (modern day Lee)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 07:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4555701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/62miles/pseuds/62miles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He rushes up the stairs to the top of the outer city wall. His knees ache and his lungs burn as he shivers in the bite of the late autumn wind. Over the rolling hillocks of pale gold meanders a rich river of red: vermillion banners, chestnut horses, rosewood carriages with carmine roofs. The stately procession is worthy of a grand princess and yet he fails to find a modicum of happiness in this color of marriage. Away. He has sent her away.</p><p>His mother's words echo in his ear: "A Prince never errs, except for before his King, and a King never errs. Things that happen, happen. Prices that must be paid, are paid. But a King never pays, for he never errs." They are knives to his heart. Jinki thinks he understands now, how the crown on his head has robbed him of his mistakes. And that is why he is here, sending his sister away to bear the burden for the war that he had lost.</p><p>"Jeonha..." Minho's voice comes as the heavy folds of a cape settle about his shoulders. Hidden from view by billowing sleeves, a familiar hand seeks out his. He clutches back with enough force to grind their bones together.</p><p>This—this is weakness. He will memorize its face and then become strong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A kite in its sky, a king on his knees

**Author's Note:**

> The scene in the summary is actually the very first image of the story to form in my head. Haven't gotten that far in my actual writing of the story though. What sparked the scene were two sayings: 십리홍장/十里红妆 (ten 'miles' of red dowry) and 연연우귀/燕燕于归 (derives from a poem describing sending off a 'younger sister' to be married somewhere distant). Anyway, the story follows Jinki from childhood to eventual kingship. Minho is there, every step of the way.
> 
> Unexpectedly, Jinki's mother, the Queen, is my favorite, though why that is perhaps will never be clear because you won't see her as much as I've developed her. She's the real culmination of all my ruminating over historical fictions.
> 
> All mistakes are my own (haha).

  
  
  
  
  
He remembers the sky by the distance that separates it from his outstretched hands.  
  
  
  
The years go by.  
  
His fingers have pulled longer like shoots off a branch; his palms have widened, roughened. But the distance between him and the sky stays the same.  
  
  
It is still on the other end of the walls, if he follows those ash gray blocks of stone upward with his eyes. But no matter how he cranes his neck, no matter how he reaches, he cannot get at it. And for a long, long time, these looming walls would draw out the perimeters of his life.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"What do you think is on top of the wall?"  
  
The question rises from his lips and stains the air white, a childish musing Jinki shares with Minho on the first day they meet. Minho of the Yuyeon Choi clan, the second son of a _daedohobu ubusa_ , a distant relative of his mother.  
  
"Tiles of gold." The younger boy speaks with wide solemn eyes.  
  
Jinki bites back a laugh and disguises it as a cough. Hands clasped behind him, he shakes his head the way he has seen his teachers do and starts walking forward again. The lanterns lighting up their path through the cold blue dusk sway as the attendants quietly match his pace. He waits till he hears a few hurried footsteps before he tilts his chin up like a proud cat. "They are red-orange _yuriwa_ , the purest color and the smoothest glaze in the entire kingdom."  
  
"But _jeoha_ , how know you that they are not gold?"  
  
"No one makes roof tiles out of gold."  
  
"But that is what _all_ the children sing." Minho furrows his eyebrows.  
  
"What children?"  
  
"In  Jeongbae where my father is stationed. The children in the streets. In their games they sing songs and there is one that says that the King's Palace in Sanggyeong has roofs of gold. That is why in sunrise the tiles shimmer like the scales of a dragon and in sunset they glow like...like..." The younger boy scrunches up his face and struggles for the word. "Ah, embers! Like the embers from which a phoenix rises."  
  
He even hums a few broken stretches of lilting melody.  
  
Jinki shoots a warning glare at his _naesi_ Gobuk when he opens his mouth to scold Minho. (Being the youngest of the prince's personal eunuchs and still enough of a child himself to cower in front of his master, Gobuk ducks his head and keeps his silence.)  
  
Jinki has seen the hand-painted silk-mounted map of the entire kingdom stretching across one wall of the King's official study. And by age seven, at the insistence of his mother and to the delight of his father, he has memorized the names of all eight _do_ , five _bu_ , four _daedohobu_ , sixteen _ju_ , forty-nine _dohobu_ , seventy-seven _gun_ , thirty-two greater _hyeon_ , and one hundred twenty-eight lesser _hyeon_. He knows, for example, Jeongbae- _daedohobu_ is a military stronghold and trade stopover nested between  Changgang- _ju_ and  Suyang- _ju_ , falling right on the northern frontier and guarded year-round by an army thirty thousand strong. However, he is not familiar with the people—the farmers and artisans and merchants, the elderly and women and children.  
  
His curiosity piques at the mention of games, but thinking of his mother's look of disapproval, he twists his mouth and asks something different: "What else do they sing?"  
  
"Oh, that the King makes his way to Sungjeong Hall every morn in a carriage drawn by thirty-six stallions, and the Queen rides a _gama_ borne by pearlescent clouds. And everyone bathes in dew collected from lotus pads and even the laundry maids wear dresses of silk brocade."  
  
"I bathed today."  
  
A pause.  
  
" _Jeoha_?"  
  
"And it is winter."  
  
Jinki cannot keep the smile out of his voice. He waves over one of his four head maids, Yeonha, and has her hold out the hem of her sleeve. The fabric is finely dyed and cut and embroidered, but it is cotton.  
  
"And my mother's—"  
  
"What are you two going on about?" A third voice interrupts. Jinki looks ahead and spots his older sister, Anyeon, flanked by two maids and two guards, a stern expression on her face. Though she is still two years shy of marriageable age, when she pulls down the corners of her mouth like that, she resembles every bit the Queen.  
  
Jinki instinctively tries to take a step back but then remembers Minho is with him, so he puts his heel on the ground again and squares his shoulders the best he can.  
  
"We are—"  
  
Anyeon closes the distance between them in a few brisk strides and ignores the attendants' greetings. "So this is  Jinweon General Choi Yongmu's second son?"  
  
The corners of Jinki's mouth tighten.  
  
He does not like that except for him and Anyeon, suddenly everyone is on their knees. He does not like the coldness in her eyes when she looks his new friend up and down. But in the end, he relents. "His name is Minho."  
  
"Minho." Anyeon nods as she tucks her hand-warming kettle into Jinki's arms. "Minho, you should speak with your father."  
  
"My father?" The boy looks up at her, confused.  
  
"When you have his company and his company alone, tell him exactly what you told the Prince just now. If he has a good head on those shoulders, he should know what needs to be done."  
  
"But...but why?"  
  
Anyeon considers him for a moment before she quietly sighs. "I know not with what freedoms your father and mother have indulged you in Jeongbae but this is the Royal Palace. The walls have ears. The servants,"—the attendants all touch their foreheads to the flagstones at the mention—"they too have ears. Perhaps the children sing these songs in simple admiration and awe, but matters of the court, matters of the king's life, matters of the royal family—such things are easily taboo."  
  
  
Misfortune too often comes from the mouth.  
  
  
_The lyrics may not be true but are they not praises? Do they not speak well of the Palace?_ Jinki clenches his fists. He looks down to see the younger boy huddled into a ball and his heart aches a little. _So then why..._  
  
Giving the hand-warming kettle back to Anyeon, he bends down and grasps Minho by the elbow. Heaving the boy onto his feet, he stares him right in the eye.  
  
"Do not fear! I will keep you from harm and hurt. I promise."  
  
  
  
Minho, uneasy, drops his gaze and refuses to speak. Anyeon stares at the kettle in her hands and brushes a thumb over the rolls of clouds engraved into the burnished metal. The attendants remain prostrated on the ground, shrinking into themselves. There is only Jinki, in this cold blue dusk, repeating: _do not fear, do not fear_.  
  
  
  
  
What is on top of the wall?  
  
The sky.  
  
  
  
  
An answer he thought was clever. That, really, was all he had meant.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
That night on the doorsteps to his main chambers, Jinki takes Minho's hand. Startled, the younger boy tries to pull back but Jinki tightens his grip. The fingers in his grasp are still round and pudgy, but the layer of callus over Minho's palm and between his thumb and first finger is thicker than Jinki's own.  
  
It takes him a while to build up the courage.  
  
  
"My mother's _gama_."  
  
Minho flinches at the word. Jinki tries to put on his most harmless smile.  
  
"My mother's _gama_ does not ride on clouds. It is carried by the royal _gamakkun_."  
  
The younger boy gnaws on his lower lip.  
  
"It is true! I have seen them. They have wide torsos and thick limbs and big hands. They wear clothes that are different from the _naesi_ and from the guards." His tone turns urgent. "I do not lie. I have even ridden on the shoulders of one!"  
  
Minho's eyes flicker up and then away.  
  
" _Jeoha_ , why...why were you on the shoulders of a servant?"  
  
Jinki flushes a little.  
  
"Because I am a prince—" _And I can do whatever I want._ He blurts out the first half before realizing how childish it sounds, so he quickly adds: "Because a good scholar spends his entire life learning and inquiring and I was practicing my curiosity. Because I...I wanted to see what is on top of the walls." _Because_ —he does not say— _I wanted to see what is outside the walls._  
  
Realization dawns across the younger boy's features.  
  
"Ah, then _jeoha_ must have seen the roof tiles."  
  
  
Jinki vaguely hums and says no more.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He knows the glazed tiles are red-orange, but he has never seen them up close and does not think he ever will. The palace walls are tall, the sort of tall that one could not fly over even if one were to sprout wings. The _gamakkun_ whom he commanded to carry him back when he was four had seemed a giant to him, but even if there had been three such men one on top of the other, it still would not have been enough.  
  
  
  
After all, how do you cross a wall that even birds gaze upward at in trepidation?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
(Every year, the kingdom's lesser neighbors send delegates to Sanggyeong with their tribute. Gold and silver, pearls and jewels, corals and woods, spices and fabrics, even prized animals. The autumn before Minho's arrival, the Queen's  Huigyeong Residence sees a pair of new additions—emerald birds with blood red beaks and long, long tails dipped in gold.)  
  
  
  
(Have you seen my mother's birds?)  
  
( _Jungjeonmama_ 's birds?)  
  
(Chwi and Geum.)  
  
(The ones that Oseol takes care of?)  
  
(The ones in the cage patterned with hibiscus flowers.)  
  
(What of them, _jeoha_?)  
  
(They do not know how to fly.)  
  
(But they are birds!)  
  
(I had Ryuha take them out of their cage and I commanded them to fly over the wall, but all they would do was shuffle around on her arm and make noises.)  
  
(They did not take the chance to escape?)  
  
(They hopped back into their cage as soon as they could, the cowards.)  
  
  
  
(A pause.)  
  
  
  
(Maybe...maybe they like it better there?)  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

>  _daedohobu ubusa_ \- right deputy general of a grand protectorate  
>  _yuriwa_ \- glazed tile  
>  _jeoha_ \- how you call the crown prince  
>  _naesi_ \- eunuch  
>  _do_ \- province (largest administrative division)  
>  _bu_ \- administrative office of a major city  
>  _daedohobu_ \- grand protectorate; a major outpost  
>  _ju_ \- prefecture (small division than a "do")  
>  _dohobu_ \- protectorate  
>  _gun_ \- county (smaller than a "ju")  
>  _hyeon_ \- district (smaller than a "gun")  
>  _gama_ \- palanquin  
>  _gamakkun_ \- palanquin bearer  
>  _jungjeonmama_ \- how you call the queen
> 
> * Administration division (from "do" to "hyeon") translations are approximate, because I'm not sure how it matches up with English systems.


End file.
